Please stay tuned for important disclosure information at the conclusion of this episode.

Hi, I'm Christine Benz from Morningstar, and welcome to the How to Retire podcast.

It's a companion to my book, which is also called How to Retire.

Each episode will provide a bite-sized lesson about how to do

some aspect of retirement well. Many of you know that I frequently talk about the bucket approach

to retirement portfolio construction. I was inspired to work on bucketing after talking to

Harold Evansky nearly two decades ago, and I knew that I wanted to chat with

Harold for this podcast. He's the founder of Avensky and Katz Folds Wealth Management and a

retired professor of practice of the Texas Tech University Personal Financial Planning Department.

Harold and I talked about how he hit on the bucket strategy and used it with his clients.

Harold, thank you so much for being here.

Well, thanks for inviting me.

Well, you had to be part of this project because you've been so influential in my work on retirement planning.

I always credit the idea of bucketing a retirement portfolio to you.

I want to talk about how you hit on that approach when working with your clients.

Back in, it was in the mid, I guess a little later in the 90s, and I was working on my book, Wealth Management.

And one of my issues has always been the, I say the myth of dividends and interest versus a total return portfolio.

So I'd establish what we called our five-year mantra, five-year mantra years, five years, meaning to manage this issue of sequences withdrawal.

And it simply meant that you don't invest anything that you're going to need five years or less.

That needs to be liquid.

So that was kind of the first step.

The next was, how do we manage to sort of this issue, this sequence withdrawal?

...